Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings and Constitutional Change (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781107039704)

Before Supreme Court nominees are allowed take their place on the high Court, they must face a moment of democratic reckoning by appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Despite the potential this holds for public input into the direction of legal change, the hearings are routinely derided as nothing but empty rituals and political grandstanding. In this book, Paul M. Collins, Jr., and Lori A. Ringhand present a contrarian view that uses both empirical data and stories culled from more than seventy years of transcripts to demonstrate that the hearings are a democratic forum for the discussion and ratification of constitutional change. As such, they are one of the ways in which "We the People" take ownership of the Constitution by examining the core constitutional values of those permitted to interpret it on our behalf.

Author: Paul M. Collins, Lori A. Ringhand
ISBN-10: 1107039703
ISBN-13: 9781107039704
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/24/2013
Pages: 314
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2014